


This late in the season, the toilet paper holder herds are far away

by Fish_Echo



Series: Cabinet 'verse [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character of Color, Gen, contains hunting of animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-21
Updated: 2008-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fish_Echo/pseuds/Fish_Echo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John woke up when he was unceremoniously dumped on the ground by the collapse of his mattress and bed-frame. "Collapse" actually was a bit too mild of a word. "Total and utter breakdown" or "It turned into dust and then it got up my nose and I sneezed a lot. I think I managed to hit my head on my knee somehow, too" described it better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This late in the season, the toilet paper holder herds are far away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [winkingstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winkingstar/gifts).



> Various people on my flist have been having a bad week. In my original plan this was gonna be a short crack-fic inspired by comments [over here](http://winkingstar.livejournal.com/191388.html) that would perk us up. But as I've started writing it wants to grow into something bigger. Still crack, but it also wants to be a team-fic showing team-bonds. And hijinks quite possibly will ensue.
> 
> Anyways, there's probably enough written here to be amusing. So have some amusement!
> 
> There's a brief cameo by [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/khriskin/profile)[**khriskin**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/khriskin/)'s [Imaginary Gate Team 5](http://khriskin.livejournal.com/tag/zzz+-+imaginary+gate+team+5) There might be sequels/companion pieces on IGT5 and Lorne's team's hunting trips. But I'm going to write this story first.
> 
> This is a work in progress. Whatever sort of feedback/comments/criticisms/notes/etc are welcome and appreciated!

John woke up when he was unceremoniously dumped on the ground by the collapse of his mattress and bed-frame. "Collapse" actually was a bit too mild of a word. "Total and utter breakdown" or "It turned into dust and then it got up my nose and I sneezed a lot. I think I managed to hit my head on my knee somehow, too" described it better.

Rodney noticed something was wrong when he went into his bathroom after yet another all-nighter (he hadn't really *needed* to pull it, but stuff needed doing and he was doing and then it was morning and Miko-- who liked getting up with the sun (clearly she was a crazy lady)-- wandered in and gave him a coffee.) in search of the B-vitamins Keller was making him take to help with blah, blah, voodoo and his medicine cabinet wasn't. Luckily nothing had landed in the toilet, but his things were all over the small room and there was a bunch of stuff in the inset formerly known as his medicine cabinet.

Teyla went to the linen cupboard to get a fresh burp cloth for Torrin only to find the cloths piled haphazardly in an alcove, covered in a fine sawdust.

Ronon paged them all over the command frequency, "Hey guys, we've got a thing happening. Meeting in Sam's office in five."

"Why yes, of course you may call a meeting in my office, Ronon." Sam's sleepy voice replied.

Ronon called the meeting to order with, "Things're breaking, we need to go hunting."

Turned out the Ancients BLAH BLAH BLAH EXPOSITIONCAKES. (Old version of expositioncakes: _"the things currently breaking down are all originally organic-- plant or animal or some weird Pegasus 'other'. They were harvested, sprayed with chemicals to stabilize them and prevent decay and then placed in Atlantis. However, the stabilization spray has broken down and now we need to replace the items. The only reason the stabilization spray has lasted as long as it did is that when the Ancients powered down the city, a retardant was realised into the air. This greatly slowed the breakdown of the stabilizer chemical."_)

"The Ancients didn't use this stuff for anything critical. It says they only did it for convenience, not that they tell you _which_ convenience," Rodney interrupted. As long as he wasn't going to pay attention in these meetings, he might as well do something useful with his time-- like looking through the database.

"And the wraith are being quiet right now," John hinted.

Teyla followed up with: "It is the Queen Mother's birthday, they will be quiet for the next several weeks."

"Alright, alright. Operation Re-Supply Atlantis is a go. By lunch I'll have a list made of items which have already failed. Sheppard, I want a list of sets of planets, items, and teams by the end of the day. Rodney, I want to know what the database says about proper harvesting and processing techniques for these items. Both of you, confer with Ronon. We'll deal with any additional failures as they occur. Let's be about it, people!"

Lorne's team was getting mattresses and bed-frames. The entire expedition was hoping that this time the mattress/bed-frame cycles would line up to give *human-sized* mattresses. It was an evolutionary feature-- the mattress sizes and the bed-frame sizes were out-of-sync, resulting in less harvesting of both of them. After all, a little bitty bed-frame can't hold a king-sized mattress. Doctor Larsen in Biology was going ga-ga over this, and had taken to pouncing on those around him and telling them all about it. ('Look, I don't need to hear about jackrabbits and foxes, predator/prey cycles, beds, or the effing Canary Islands! I just want a damn coffee!" Simpson was not pleased when he cornered her in the mess.)

Newton's team had been sent after towel racks. Turns out towel racks are actually the seed pod of some vine symbiotic with a tree that can grow really impressively large. And the screws to set the towel rack into the wall come from that tree's pine cone. They came back late, covered in mud, but "Victorious against the evil vines! Bwah!" in the words of Sargent Meyers.

Sheppard's team went after bathroom cabinets.

Rodney had gotten utterly fed up the first time he got "monched on" (technical term, supplied by Ronon) by a linen cupboard. "Can you call it a linen cupboard? Does Pegasus even have flax? And why do I know what linen is spun from! I could be using those brain cells for physics!"

Teyla rather thought that his grumpiness stemmed from biology masquerading as engineering. She was quietly collecting loose drawer pulls for Torren.

John was enthusiastic and enjoying the whole thing too much.

Ronon, it turned out, had opinions on cabinetry.

*HUNTING ANTICS*

They were taking a break from the hunt. Rodney was railing against the bio-cabinets.

"It's a soft science!"

"And here I thought biology had, you know, experiments, rigour, numbers, testable hypotheses.... What more d'ya want?" Ah, the back-and-forth of teammates. Teyla listened with half an ear to the comforting, routine snipping.

"It's poky, look!" Rodney was poking at one of the just-captured medicine cabinets in the side. The surface was depressed where his index finger was, and he was looking at it suspiciously.

"Rodney, it appears to flexible and not poky at all." Teyla joined in.

Rodney huffed off. Stormed off? Went in a snit? A tiff? Teyla amused herself trying to come up with the proper word in her mind to describe her teammate. One of the tricks to keeping friendships was to find a way to not be bothered by the other's eccentricities. And Teyla had her methods.

"OK, break's over" John called. At that, Rodney came back from where he had been playing with his scanner and Ronon began policing the area. "Teyla's got a smile on, we can't have that now, can we!"

"Certainly not. I do believe this calls for drastic action," Teyla dead-panned back at him.

"Excellent! I think this means more hunting!" John was a bit gleeful, all but rubbing his hands together.

They headed back to the trail.

Ronon insisted that they find a number of herds of different sorts. He wanted people to have a choice. He was finicky.

*MORE ANTICS. POSSIBLY INCLUDING HIJINKS*

When they finally returned, hold full of medicine cabinets, linen cupboards, towel closets, small vanities, and even more things Rodney didn't care to know, John hailed the city. "Sam, we were successful! Had a lovely time ('speak for yourself'~RMcK), got a good batch, even some for trade, how's the city?"

"I'm glad to hear that," the entire cockpit could hear the unspoken "but" in her words.

"We had another failure while your team was gone." At this, the entire team-- okay, the *sane* members of the team -- groaned. Rodney did. Teyla sighed slightly. Ronon raised his eyebrows attentively. John might have grinned widely (He denies doing it. But everyone saw). "We need you to go get toilet paper holders'.


End file.
